


Divide and Conquer

by skivvysupreme



Series: The Cuffed Verse [11]
Category: Glee
Genre: Cheerio Blaine, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Past Violence, Skank Kurt Hummel, Skank Quinn Fabray
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-21
Packaged: 2018-05-02 18:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5258567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skivvysupreme/pseuds/skivvysupreme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding Blaine and kissing him in front of whoever’s watching, eating lunch together in the cafeteria, holding his hand as they walk through the halls—that’s the victory in all this, isn’t it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divide and Conquer

McKinley looks… weird.

Kurt lets out a long exhale from his cigarette, moving his pursed lips left and right, and through the smoky haze, he thinks McKinley has never looked so small. The campus has shrunk in his absence, reduced to some inconsequential little thing that fits under the soles of his Docs. Kurt has risen above it, beaten it, because everyone in school knows that three oversized cowards tried to put him back in line and _failed_.

The whispers and looks—mostly furtive glances, but a few have the gall to outright stare—begin as soon as he steps inside. Kurt’s wearing his default McKinley face—aloof, indifferent, bored—but he can feel a dimpled smirk growing as he makes his way through the halls. It’s exactly as he envisioned, from wide-eyed awe to the respectful nod he gets from Lauren Zizes when she passes to the impotent scowls a few of the hockey-playing douchebags throw his way. But they can’t do anything. No one can. They can’t lay a finger on him.

Kurt can hardly contain himself. All he has to do now is find Blaine.

That’s the part of returning that Kurt has been looking forward to. He got to see his boyfriend every day of his suspension, excluding Sunday, but being _here_ with him, publicly, after what’s happened, is the only thing that will cement this feeling of power for him. Finding Blaine and kissing him in front of whoever’s watching, eating lunch together in the cafeteria, holding his hand as they walk through the halls—that’s the victory in all this, isn’t it?

Blaine, as usual, sends Kurt’s heart beating a little faster when Kurt spots him at his locker in the middle of the hallway. He’s so neat and perfect in his red and white, and Kurt can’t shake the urge to dig his fingers into the equally neat and perfect black hair and mess it up a little. But he’ll settle for kissing Blaine senseless, for now.

Blaine looks up and smiles just before Kurt reaches him, when someone nearby whispers, _“Look, Hummel’s back.”_

“Hey, you,” Kurt says, leaning in to kiss him.

Blaine glances at the whispering duo and ducks his head into his locker to grab another book. “Hey, Kurt.”

Kurt stops short before he can land the kiss, pulling his pursed lips into his mouth. Ugh, his perfect-student boyfriend, so strict about being prepared and getting to class on time.

“Are you excited to be back?” Blaine asks, popping his head out of his locker to smile at him again before he reaches back in.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever excited about being here…” Kurt trails off. He rests a hand on the small of Blaine’s back, just above his waistband, and continues, “Returning has its perks, though.” He moves in to kiss Blaine’s cheek—

Blaine shifts to the side, shutting his locker and busying himself with the flap of his book bag. He turns and leans against the closed lockers. “Fair point. But _I’m_ excited that you’re back.”

“Then stop moving around so I can kiss you, antsy,” Kurt snorts, placing his hand over Blaine’s where it’s wrapped tight around the strap of his bag and leaning close again.

Then there’s a hand on Kurt’s chest and Blaine’s turning his face away from him. “Not—not here,” he whispers, his eyes on the people walking past them instead of on Kurt.

The proud, happy bubble in Kurt’s chest quivers—and then bursts. He backs off, the disappointment going tight in his throat, and carefully pulls his quickly fading smile into something pleasantly neutral. Kurt doesn’t say anything at first, not trusting what might come out of his mouth if he opens it.

One corner of Blaine’s mouth twitches and he offers the tiniest little shrug. “It’s just—”

“I get it.” He doesn’t.

“You do?”

No. “Yeah.”

And Blaine doesn’t look convinced, but Kurt doesn’t really care if he’s convinced. Kurt just needs to get away from him, because the need to touch him is no weaker than it was a moment ago, back when he thought he could. He folds his arms so he can keep his aching hands to himself and says, “I’ll see you at lunch,” as he turns and walks briskly down the hallway.

Kurt was right. McKinley _is_ smaller. It’s suffocating him, boxing him in, squeezing him inside its walls just when he thought he might be able to stretch his legs.

He hears Blaine call after him, a hesitant, “Kurt?” but he doesn’t stop. Walking each other to their first classes, or continuing to chat like everything’s fine, or whatever Blaine had in mind feels like some cheap consolation prize if he can’t behave as though they’re together. So, if Blaine needs him to stay away, he’ll stay away.

*****

The morning passes in a blur.

Most of Kurt’s teachers are shocked when he hands them a week’s worth—and in calculus’ case, more than a week’s worth—of completed homework. The whispers and looks don’t stop, as with each new class period, a fresh wave of gossipers notices his presence. Quinn doesn’t say much in their shared calculus class, but then again, she rarely does, so he just offers her the standard eye-roll and sigh as if to say, _Back in hell, how are you?_

She smiles and gives him a little wave before returning to her notebook.

Kurt tries not to think about Blaine. But the phantom pressure of Blaine’s soft pink lips against his own is fresh since Saturday, and he can’t stop biting and pressing his lips together to stop it from slipping away from him. Kurt misses the Blaine he got to know during his suspension, the one who was always open for him and looked at him like nothing else mattered. That’s the Blaine who holds onto him like he’ll fly off the planet if he lets go. This morning’s Blaine seemingly wants little to do with him.

By lunchtime, Blaine is all Kurt can think about.

The sofa under the bleachers isn’t empty, as Kurt hopes it is when he reaches it. Quinn’s there, stretched out with her head on Puck’s lap and her legs crossed over one arm of the sofa, reading _Just Kids_ while Puck swipes at something on his phone. Kurt keeps moving over to the rails of the bleachers and lights a cigarette.

“‘Sup, Kurt?”

Kurt shrugs, says nothing. He doesn’t need questions, he just needs quiet, he needs to think—he’s more sad than angry about all this and he doesn’t know why, he stopped being sad about things when he discovered that anger is so much easier—

“Where’s your boy?”

Kurt shrugs again and nonchalantly kicks at an old cigarette butt near his feet. “In the caf, presumably.”

“Man, I thought you’d be all over each other since you were gone all week.”

“What, did you want to watch? Sorry to ruin your entertainment,” Kurt says, arching an eyebrow at Puck as he exhales the smoke. The irony of that particular deflection isn’t lost on him, considering what he imagined when he walked into school this morning, but Puck needs to fuck off.

As predicted, Kurt’s suggestion puts an affronted wrinkle in Puck’s nose, but Quinn pulls her book away from her face and narrows her eyes at Kurt. And he can’t hide when Quinn gives him that look, her green eyes sharp and calculating as they consider his face and body language. Quinn notices everything.

“He did something,” she says, her voice soft as she sits up and closes her book.

Puck rolls his eyes at Kurt. “Damn it, Kurt, what did you—”

“The other ‘he,’” adds Quinn.

Puck’s face darkens and he rises from the sofa. “I fucking warned him.”

“You… warned him? Warned him of what?” Kurt snaps in alarm. “Puck, what the fuck did you say to him? Where are you going?”

“I’ll be back!” Puck shouts over his shoulder, storming out from under the bleachers and walking off towards the school.

Kurt moves to follow and stop him, but Quinn holds up a hand and says, “He’s not going to do anything. You know he’s more bark than bite.”

Kurt knows no such thing, since Puck has knocked over ATMs with his pickup truck and slashed an entire show choir’s car tires in the past, but instead of following him, Kurt sits on the sofa next to Quinn. “I just need to think. I don’t want to talk about it,” he sighs, sucking on his cigarette again.

“That’s fine,” Quinn says with a toss of her tousled pink hair, her voice light. “Anyway, it’s probably for the best that Anderson fucked this up early, before you guys got in too deep. Before he could really matter to you.”

“He does matter to me,” Kurt says immediately, and that is something certain, something he can’t pretend is any different. He _is_ in too deep, and whatever it is that he feels for Blaine, he matters to Kurt. He’s quiet for a few moments after he admits it, and so is Quinn, the silence and smoke hovering in the air around them. Kurt’s voice is barely audible when he finally speaks again. “I can’t kiss him in front of people.”

“Then you must not matter to him,” Quinn suggests.

As much as the idea hurts, Kurt wants to say that’s the case, that it’s a simple matter of Blaine being an asshole and leading him on just to reject him in the middle of the busy morning hallway, because that would make this easier, would let him lick his wounds and walk away—but that’s not true. He knows it isn’t. No one has ever looked at him or cared for him the way Blaine does. No one has ever run to him in a panic after a fight to make sure that he’s okay, or gone to all of his teachers for his homework and then brought it to his house to keep him from falling behind—because as annoying as Blaine’s academic perfection is, Kurt understands how above-and-beyond that gesture was. No one has ever kissed him the way Blaine does. And Blaine has said it, they talked about it, whatever this pull is between them—they _both_ feel it.

It’s just—Blaine’s fear is stronger. However much he feels for Kurt, it’s not enough for Blaine to fight back, to stand up for him. Or for himself.

“That’s not how it is,” Kurt sighs.

Quinn slides a cigarette into her mouth and turns to Kurt, waiting. He lights hers with the lit end of his own, and after a few puffs, she leans back and says, “Well, if you care about him, and he cares about you, then how is it, Kurt? It seems pretty simple in those terms.”

“There’s more to it than that. It’s more complicated for a—a c-couple like us, here.” Kurt trips on the words, the concept foreign on his tongue in relation to himself. “You and Puck don’t have to walk through school being paranoid about who sees you. And _I’m_ not, but...”

“But he’s not as brave as you are. That’s not fair to you.”

Kurt might have agreed with Quinn on that front and left it at that as little as a week ago, but the Blaine he saw on Saturday won't let him. No, it isn't fair to Kurt, but it isn't fair to Blaine either.

“We’ve experienced hateful shit in different ways,” Kurt says, slow and vague. He can feel Quinn’s eyes on him, expecting further explanation, but that story isn't his to tell. “I get why he's afraid, I just… he _can_ fight, and he doesn't. And I don't know why.”

“Mmm. I bet that pisses you off.”

“I’m… no, I’m not mad at him.” Kurt only realizes that’s true once he says it.

“Really? You gave enough of a shit to do it for him, and he didn’t for you.”

“I wasn’t just fighting for his sake, why is that so fucking difficult for everyone to understand? And either way, I should be used to that. No one fights my battles and I don’t need them to. I just—” Kurt stops, feels heat collecting at the bridge of his nose, but he does not cry in front of people, not anymore—and why is he about to cry, anyway? Fuck this, fuck Anderson, he thought he was over this junior year shit— “I said I didn’t want to talk about this. Why are we talking about this?”

Quinn runs her tongue across her bottom lip, swirling smoke around. “Because you needed to. Did that help you figure anything out?”

He knows what hurts now. He looks up at the bleachers above their heads, and nods.

She watches him for a moment—he can feel her eyes on him again—then stands, gathering her things.

“By the way,” Quinn says, flicking the ash from her cigarette, “I know you matter to him. And I know it’s not simple. Talk with him, Kurt.”

Kurt looks up at her, taking a slow, deep breath through his nose to try and stave off the wetness he feels collecting in the corners of his eyes. She sees, she gets it. She understands not just his side, but wherever Blaine is coming from—because if there’s anyone who understands self-preservation, it’s Quinn Fabray—and realization dawns that she’s just reverse-psychologied or Jedi mind-tricked him or something into emotional clarity. Kurt wants to ask her to stay, because he thought he wanted to be alone, but he doesn’t, not really—and everyone always just leaves him alone because they think he’s fine, he can handle it—and he knows he pushes people out, pushes them away, but he doesn’t know how to ask for these things sometimes and no one even _tries_ —

He nods again, his mouth a firm line, and says nothing.

Quinn leaves.

Kurt waits until he can’t hear her footsteps anymore before he lets himself cry.

*****

**Burgers on the menu today!!! Perfect timing for your return :D**

**On my way to your locker. Lunch?**

**...Or I could meet you in the caf?**

**I’ll go ahead and meet you there. A table will be waiting!**

**Don’t tell me you got detention on your first day back :P**

**Hey…**

**Where are you?**

**Kurt?**

Blaine frowns at his phone and shoves it into his bag with an uneasy feeling in his stomach, moving to collect his afternoon textbooks from his open locker. Kurt hasn’t said a word to him since they met up this morning. And, yeah, things were awkward this morning, but Blaine was looking forward to his sarcastic, snarky commentary and hearing about how his classes went...

“ANDERSON!”

Blaine jumps as his locker slams shut, a large hand planted against the metal in front of his face. He instinctively ducks his head, shuts his eyes tight—

“You said you’d never do anything to hurt him. What the hell happened?”

Blaine recognizes the voice. He opens his eyes, and there’s Noah Puckerman towering over him and glaring like an angry rottweiler. He looks exactly as he did when he and Blaine were alone in the kitchen at his party. It’s only concern that keeps Blaine from backing away from him. “Kurt? Is he okay? Where is he?”

“Answer the question,” Puck says. “He’s upset and you did something, so what was it?”

“He hasn’t spoken to me all day, not since...um.” Blaine replays their morning in his head. Kurt’s eyes were bright, excited—excited to see _him_ , specifically. He was eager and tactile in a way Blaine hadn’t yet seen when they weren’t alone, and he hadn’t expected it. Blaine could see other people watching them, watching Kurt’s hands on his body and the way he leaned into him, and as he looked back at Kurt and saw that slightly off-color patch of his cheek where that stubborn bruise was finally disappearing, fear had set Blaine on edge, rendering him unable to accept Kurt’s touches.

Kurt had noticed and closed himself off right away.

“Since, UMMM,” Puck parrots back at him. “Yeah, Anderson. That. Whatever it was.’”

It’s then that Blaine fully registers the fact that Kurt hasn’t told Puck what happened, but that Puck is here regardless, which means that Kurt was visibly upset. And Blaine knows that Puck’s not going to let him go without an explanation. Blaine looks down at his white sneakers, cheeks burning in shame. “He wanted to kiss me this morning and I pushed him away.”

“You’re boyfriends,” Puck says, as if this is the beginning and end of everything. “That usually means you wanna kiss the gi—I mean, the other person you’re dating.”

Blaine sighs. “Well, actually, that’s not how all romantic relationships work, but yeah. But not everyone here is okay with it, and they’ve made it clear. It’s not safe for us.”

Puck rolls his eyes. “You’re scared of a few jerkoffs with slushies? I’ve been slushied before, we all have—”

Blaine puts his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “Three guys ganged up on Kurt, Puck. And not with slushies.”

“So? Kurt’s a beast, he handled it,” shrugs Puck. “You gotta be ‘ride or die,’ man. He’s not scared, so you can’t be either. Be with him for real, or leave him alone.”

“You don’t get it!” Blaine shouts, and he knows the few stragglers in the hallway are looking back at him and Puck but he can’t care right now. “Do you understand how much worse that could have been? I’ve seen worse, I’ve gotten worse. They came after him because of me, because they saw us, and if what happened to me had happened to him—if that _ever_ happens to him… I can't let him get hurt like that because of me. I mean, just thinking about it…” Blaine makes a broken noise in his throat, then rests his back against the lockers and sits down.

Puck follows, sitting down next to him. “You know Kurt's gonna be just as gay as he always is whether he's with you or not, right? If they go after him again, it won't be because of you. He pisses people off, you know? It’s not his fault. They’re not gonna be down with him no matter what. They hated him before you showed up.”

Blaine knows all of this, but he doesn’t want to give them ammo, either. Finding Kurt in front of the principal’s office, bruised and beaten up but not defeated, deep purple bruise on his cheek, idly flexing his bruised fingers and smiling up at Blaine as though nothing had happened—Blaine still can’t get the image out of his head. It wasn’t just the fact that Kurt had been attacked, but that he didn’t seem bothered by it. Kurt isn’t afraid. He refuses to be. He would do it again, and Blaine knows that for a fact.

Blaine’s boyfriend is reckless and it scares the shit out of him.

“For real, man, what are you gonna do about it? Keep him a secret? Kurt was barely in the closet when he was actually in the closet, trust me, you can’t put him back in.”

Blaine laughs, though he doesn’t know where it’s coming from. “No, I definitely wouldn’t ask him to do that.”

“Then you better talk to him, because this looks pretty shitty.”

He thinks of the way Kurt pulled away from him this morning, the way _hurt_ flickered across his features before Blaine could address it, the way he curled into himself and disappeared immediately afterwards. “Oh god. He thinks I don’t want to be with him in the open, doesn’t he?”

Puck shrugs.

“I swear, I just wanted to keep us safe. I never meant to hurt him, that’s the last thing I’d ever want. I just didn’t know what to do.”

Puck looks at him far longer and more thoughtfully than Blaine would expect. He can feel Puck sizing him up, evaluating him like some volatile x-ray machine that will incinerate the patient if it doesn’t like what it sees.

Blaine forces himself to look Puck in the eye, and waits.

“If anyone messes with you, let me know, all right? I know it seems like nobody sees how this place fucks with you, but I do. And I know, ‘cause I used to be one of the assholes who always got away with this shit. But like I said, Kurt’s my boy. I’ve had his back since last year, and now I got yours too.”

He holds out his fist for Blaine to bump, and Blaine returns it.

“Now go fix it, Anderson. I’ll still kick your ass if you don’t.”

*****

It’s quiet by the football field. Leaves crunch under Blaine’s feet as he approaches the bleachers, and they seem loud in his ears but he supposes they’ll announce his presence.

Sure enough, Kurt’s looking in his direction when he finally turns the corner and slides underneath the bleachers. His eyes are red-rimmed and he has his arms wrapped tightly around himself, but he stares defiantly at Blaine, chin up, and opens his mouth to speak. Blaine can see Kurt’s lips go wide around the “A” in Anderson and he braces himself, because he hates when Kurt calls him that, knowing what Kurt’s trying to do when he does it.

Kurt pauses, takes a deep breath through his nose, and says, “Blaine.”

The relief floods through his system and he takes a step closer to the couch. “Hi, Kurt.”

“I take it Puck found you. I didn’t send him, just so you know.”

Blaine nods. “I didn’t think you would have.”

Then they’re both quiet, and the silence is awkward for a moment before—

“Blaine, I’ve thought about it, and I don’t…” Another deep breath, and Blaine dreads his next words as he watches Kurt visibly steel himself for whatever he’s about to say. “I don’t want to do this if you’re not ready.”

The implication runs cold down Blaine’s back. “What?”

“I know the right thing to say is probably, ‘We can go at whatever pace you need,’ or maybe ‘We can keep things quiet.’ And the last thing I want to do is push you into something that makes you uncomfortable. That’s not what this is. It’s not an ultimatum. I’m saying, if you honestly aren’t ready, we should… push pause, until you are. If you need space, I’ll give it to you. I just can’t be a secret in the meantime.”

“Kurt, I am, I’m ready. And I don’t want space from you. This morning wasn’t—it wasn’t about keeping you secret or anything.”

“I get it, you’re scared. But I hoped we could fight all this bullshit together.” Kurt’s voice cracks and his mouth becomes a squiggle as he looks down at his boots. “No one stands up for me, or thinks I’m worth fighting for. I learned that pretty quickly last year. And I—I don’t need them to. I don’t. It’s—I don’t know, maybe it’s selfish, but… I just wanted to be enough, this time.”

Blaine rushes forward and drops onto the couch on his knees, wrapping his arms around Kurt’s shoulders and pressing his face into Kurt’s pink hair. “You are, you’re enough. You’re enough. You’re more than enough, I’m so sorry I made you feel any differently.”

Kurt sags against him. “I can’t ask you to put yourself out there if you’re scared of what they’ll do to you, I’m sorry, I swear I get it, I just need—“

“Baby, no, I’m scared of what they’ll do to _you_ , I can’t let you get hurt because of me. Again.”

“Stop blaming yourself!” Kurt yells, pulling back so Blaine can see the frustration on his face. “And stop pretending nothing happened to you, just because they slushied you and I got in a fight! I know they’re not physically the same thing, but they came after both of us.”

Blaine puts his hands on either side of Kurt’s face. “They didn’t put their hands on me, no. They chose slushies because I’m captain of the Cheerios. There was no salvaging that uniform, so I know Coach Sue threw it out. They wanted me to know I’m not safe just because of my… status.”

“You give them way more credit than I do. I’m not sure those Neanderthals are capable of thinking so symbolically.”

Blaine manages a smile before he goes on. “Kurt, they wanted to send both of us a message, but they wanted to _harm_ you. They came after you with nothing but their fists. They destroyed my uniform, but you were bruised up for a week. And yes, you defended yourself, but if no one had been around to break up the fight…”

Kurt nods. It could have been worse, but Blaine is aware that’s not a thought Kurt has dwelled on at any point since the fight. “I know. But don’t make this about me. It’s okay to admit that you don’t want to get attacked again, either, whether that’s a slushy or a fight or whatever. Be honest with me, because I don’t need some self-sacrificing knight in red polyester armor.”

Blaine ducks his head, grinning. “I know you don’t. You’re right, I don’t want them to come after me again. This isn’t just about you.”

Kurt wraps his arms around Blaine’s waist and tucks his head into Blaine’s shoulder, letting out a long exhale as he relaxes against Blaine’s body. “Okay. God, this whole thing with you has been serious from the start, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah. But I don’t regret it.”

“Me neither.”

“Please don’t break up with me.” Blaine holds him close, digging his hand into Kurt’s wild pink hair.

_Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go._

“I’m with you, and not in secret, I promise. We’ll figure this out.”

“Okay,” Kurt says again, clutching the sides of Blaine’s Cheerio shirt in his fists. “So, where do we go from here?”

“Well, before we go any further…” Blaine slides his hand to Kurt’s jaw to tip his head back, watching Kurt’s open, wide-eyed face for a moment before he leans in and kisses him. He just manages to see Kurt’s eyebrows raise before they both close their eyes and sink into each other. And Blaine doesn’t let go until Kurt gasps for breath and presses their cheeks together.

“I owed you that from this morning,” Blaine whispers, his voice a little scratchy.

Kurt laughs wetly, swiping at one eye with the back of his hand. “You don’t _owe_ me kisses, Blaine, for fuck’s sake…”

Blaine shrugs, laughing with him. “Maybe. But we’ll figure this out, okay?”

“Yeah. What class are you skipping right now? Am I being a bad influence again?”

“Don’t worry about it. This isn’t just about you, remember?”

Kurt scoots closer on the couch, pressing as much of himself against Blaine as he can. “Okay. Fair enough.”


End file.
